Infoscape Research Lab
Ryerson University
Room RCC 202
Hacking the Grid: Does Electricity Want to Be Free?
Gary Genosko, Lakehead University
Abstract
Free web content idealists believe that information wants to be free. My strategy in this presentation is to ask: does electricity want to be free? If so, on whose terms, and by what means? I want to look for preliminary answers to my questions in countercultural struggles against the electrical companies, namely, in Yippie technoculture, practices of rogue electricians in the cannabis culture of grow-ops, eco-warriors cutting down hydro towers, and alt-energy, off-the-grid, drop outs. In order to imagine what an electrical commons might look like, I regain some hard lessons from the history of black outs, especially large-scale events in the northeast such as New York City (1965) and Toronto (2003).
Infoscape Research Lab, Room 351, Rogers Communications Centre, Ryerson University
On Friday, January 15, 2:30pm, Alessandra Renzi (PhD Candidate, OISE, University of Toronto) will be speaking on "Repurposing Research: From Pirate Television to Connective Ethnography".
Dr. Greg Elmer,
Bell Globemedia Research Chair and Director of the Infoscape research
lab at the Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, will deliver a guest
lecture entitled:
“Open Source Video: Testing the Limits of Participatory Media Making“
Science in Second Life operates through the modeling and interacting
with virtual objects. These objects are primarily visual constructs
represented on the screen. There is an interplay of interactivity
and information found in constructions of scientific environments and
tools in Second Life. In this presentation I analyze builds in Second
Life that do one of three goals, either they are classroom materials
about sciences, sites aimed at toward improving the public
understanding of science, or sites that represent scientific history
